The Montgomerys' house was next in age to the Yorbas', but neither so
large nor so solid. Even its verandah, however, had a more homelike air;
its carpets and rugs were old but handsome; and it was full of pretty
trifles, and much carved furniture, gathered in Europe. The lawns were
small, the grounds carelessly kept, but there were many fine old trees
and a wilderness of flowers.
Coralie Brannan and Lee Tarlton, Mrs. Montgomery's little ward, were
romping on the lawn as the Yorbas drove up. Tiny and Ila were sitting on
the verandah. The former was in her favourite white, and a hat and sash
of azure. Ila wore a superlatively smart frock of yellow silk muslin,
and a yellow sun-hat covered with red poppies.
Trennahan saw the flash of dismay from Magdaléna's eyes before her face
settled into its most stolid expression. He felt genuinely sorry for
her, but his only part was to get out and hand these radiant visions
into the char-à-banc.
"It is _so_ nice to think that you may be a neighbour of ours," said
Tiny, sweetly, as Ila was kissing Mrs. Yorba, and asking if she were not
a good girl to meet her halfway. "We shall really be glad to have you."
"We shall make him forget that he has not lived here always," said Ila,
with her most brilliant smile. She was much elated at the unexpected
foil. "He will become quite one of us."
"I am sure he would not think of settling elsewhere in California," said
Mrs. Yorba. And then she added with what for her was extreme
graciousness, "My husband and I shall be very glad to have him for
neighbour."
Trennahan murmured his thanks. He was deeply amused. That he was the
representative of one of the proudest families in a State some three
hundred years old mattered nothing to these Californians of Menlo Park.
Is it catching, I wonder? he thought. If some of my English friends
should come out here five years hence, should I patronise them?
Doubtless, for it is like living on another planet. Exclusiveness is the
very scheme of its nature. It is encouraging to think that I have yet
another phase to live through.
Ila claimed his attention and kept it as they rolled down the dusty road
toward the Mark Smith place. Tiny, after a futile attempt to engage
Magdaléna in conversation, devoted herself prettily to Mrs. Yorba and
talked of the plans for the summer.
Magdaléna was acutely miserable. Her exaltation of spirits was a bare
memory. She hated her dowdy frock, her glaring contrast to the vivid
Ila, accentuated by that grotesque similarity of attire. She listened to
Ila's brilliant chatter and recalled her own halting phrases, her narrow
vocabulary, and wondered angrily at the conceit which had prompted her
to hope that she was overcoming her natural deficiencies.
Then she remembered that she was a Yorba, and drew herself up in lonely
pride. It was a privilege for these girls to be intimate with her, to
call her 'Léna, great as might be their social superiority over the many
in San Francisco whose names she had never heard. In her inordinate
pride of birth, in her intimate knowledge of the fact that she was the
daughter of a Californian grandee who still possessed the three hundred
thousand acres granted his fathers by the Spanish crown, she in all
honesty believed no one of these friends of her youth to be her equal,
although she never betrayed herself by so much as a lifting of the
eyebrow. She had questioned, after her loss of religion, if it were not
her duty to train down her pride, but had concluded that it was not; it
injured no one, and it was a tribute she owed her race. She liked
Trennahan the better that he had discovered and approved this pride.